


Worldbuilding 12: The Letter/The Dogtags

by JoAsakura



Series: X-Force: Mutant Crimes Investigation Unit [11]
Category: MCIU
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-10-22
Updated: 2010-10-22
Packaged: 2017-10-12 19:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written as backstory for Ric and 'Star's dogtags as they appear in XF:MCIU</p><p>http://joasakura.deviantart.com/journal/31489281/#/d2nf0xg</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worldbuilding 12: The Letter/The Dogtags

The Letter:

it's just one page- done in pencil, because that's all 'Star had at the time-on the back of some paper placemat from some two-bit diner. You might've seen them, the kind with local ads for towing companies and house cleaning services that local kids deface with crudely drawn genitalia when they're bored and eating french fries in the middle of the night.

It's a little tattered with age now and there's a stain of coffee at one corner, but Ric keeps it in a little box with just a few other special things. They don't ever talk about it, but he can picture 'Star writing it- big shoulders hunched over the chipped formica of the diner's bar, coffee and pancakes at his elbow, tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth as he writes in a pencil that's been chewed to hell on the end, writing a letter that he doesn't know if Ric will ever see.

Reading came easier to 'Star than writing, and even Ben Russell can't make the pencil sit more comfortably in 'Star's large hand.

2) Dog Tags

Their bedroom is messy, but it's the kind of normal mess that two busy men generate, not the bloody violence that mars the rest of the apartment. To Ric's back, across the hall is the bathroom, and he can't even bring himself to look. No amount of cleaning will make that right, he thinks. They'll just have to tear it out and start over.

His hands are shaking when he pulls out the battered little ammo box from the closet. It's small enough that it's ridden in his pack from barren safehouses to his paris flat and back to New York again, but big enough to hold the few things that Ric considers truly important. His grandmother's rosary. A diner placemat folded neatly in quarters, one side filled with 'Star's handwriting. Some dog-eared photos. And the dog tags.

They're an artifact from the old days of fighting sentinels and the MLF. From the days the were at war with just about everyone it seemed. Even when they were apart, when Ric was working for X Corporation and Shatterstar was living day to day as a mercenary, neither had ever thought to take them off.

It wasn't until their reunion, the tags warmed by their combined body heat and clinking softly together as they made love for the first time in years, that they decided to put them away. A symbol of this new, relatively peaceful life they were starting over together. Ric doesn't even have to look at them to know who's is whose. On Rictor's set, bearing one of 'Star's tag and one of his own, the edges are worn smooth and bright like river stones, polished by thousands of absent touches by a pair of hands that constantly tremble with a faint, seismic energy. 'Star's set is jagged- their edges gnawed by his absent habit of chewing things and the ugly deformation of a bullet that clipped too close to his heart for Rictor's comfort level, healing factor or no.

Ric slides his set over his head and pockets 'Star's before he grabs a duffle of clothes. Monet is waiting to take him to the hospital.

'Star will understand why Ric's brought the tags. Because now, they're at war again.


End file.
